Elif approached with a slight frown, stepping forward quietly. "Your Majesty, poaching has been repeatedly suppressed, but its root cause lies not in the law, it lies in supply and demand."
Lucien took a small bite of a sweet pastry. Volcarona nuzzled gently against his fingertips.
"Go on."
"Nobles and wealthy merchants are willing to pay exorbitant prices for rare Pokémon," Elif continued, "and that alone creates fertile ground for the black market to thrive.
We can execute one group and arrest another, but as long as the profit exists, there will always be someone desperate enough to fill the gap."
Lucien's expression shifted into quiet thought. After a moment, he said, "Then let's take the black market business and make it our own."
Elif blinked. "Your Majesty?"
"Starting today, the Pokémon League will establish an official Pokémon breeding and care agency. Wild and rare Pokémon will be protected, not captured.
However, offspring produced through registered breeding can be publicly listed, legally traded, and their prices will be regulated uniformly by the Kingdom."
Lucien paused, the framework of later-generation Pokémon Day Care regulations forming clearly in his mind.
"A second decree will follow, any Pokémon not registered through the League's official system will be barred from entering cities, from being traded, and from use in any official capacity.
Anyone caught buying or selling outside the system faces consequences ranging from permanent loss of trading rights to full revocation of their Trainer status, with a lifetime ban on Pokémon ownership."
Elif's eyes lit up. "Your Majesty is wise. If the black market yields no profit, it will collapse on its own without us ever needing to fight it directly."
"Not entirely," Lucien said, his gaze drifting toward the window. "The revenue from legal transactions must be properly allocated. A portion goes to the Gym Leaders, a portion sustains the League, and the remainder, all of it is reinvested into wild Pokémon habitat protection."
Profit channeled from trade, used to protect the very Pokémon that trade depended upon. In just a few quiet sentences, a framework of interlocking rules had taken shape across the breadth of the entire Unova Kingdom.
Elif bowed with genuine admiration. "I will arrange it immediately."
Lucien waved a hand and settled back into his chair, eyes drifting upward to the clouds moving slowly across the sky.
"One more thing, establish a forest ranger corps and an international police division. Recruit rangers externally and charge them with protecting Pokémon habitats and conducting rescues in the wild.
As for larger criminal cases involving Pokémon, coordinate with Interpol and Officer Jenny. All major cases will be handed to them to manage."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Elif bowed again. "I will see to it."
Lucien nodded.
It was the end of November, year 151 of the Kingdom Calendar. The year was drawing quietly to a close.
"Almost over," he murmured to himself.
Minccino, clutching a small berry, hopped up onto his shoulder and pressed its soft head against his cheek. Lucien reached up and stroked it absently, thinking, as he often did lately, of how quickly time moved.
The final days of the year arrived on a bitter wind that carried fine snowflakes down onto every town across the Unova Kingdom. Inside the League building, the mountain of documents had finally been whittled down to less than half its former height.
Anna looked at the calendar, then looked at the four exhausted faces around her, and sighed, a long, relieved exhale.
"We're going on holiday."
The effect was immediate.
"Finally!" Freya leapt to her feet, eyes shining like stars. "I'm going straight home. My parents have to see me like this."
Lucas rolled his aching shoulders with a groan that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his bones.
Raphael set down the last of his documents and let out a slow, measured breath. "I am going to sleep for three days without interruption, and I will not be answering for anyone." A quiet smile followed. He was also looking forward to going home, to restoring his family's standing, and showing certain people exactly what the Raphael name had become.
Derick was already on his feet before Anna had finished speaking. His first priority was to bring his mother from Castelia City to Lucien City, to give her a stable and comfortable life at last. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
Anna watched them all and said softly, "Come back on time. The League's first full year is only going to be busier than this one."
"Understood, Champion!"
The five of them gathered their things, pinned on their medals and badges, and swept out of the League headquarters with the energy of people who had earned every moment of rest ahead of them.
On the streets, passersby stopped and stared.
"The Elite Four!"
"Those are the Elite Four, personally appointed by His Majesty Lucien!"
The four of them walked with their heads high and their chests out, wearing their pride openly and without apology. They had earned that too.
Up on the castle rooftop, Lucien held Minccino in his arms and watched the five figures moving through the streets below. A soft laugh escaped him.
"Elif, prepare New Year's gifts for each of them. A fifth share apiece, as a personal reward from me."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Elif understood perfectly. The King's gift didn't need to be lavish, only enough to allow five newly risen powerhouses to return to their hometowns and establish themselves with dignity.
On the streets of Lucien City, the five said their farewells and set off in different directions.
Raphael and Lucas were both headed to Opelucid City, which the steam line already served directly, so they boarded the train together. Derick and Freya were bound for Castelia City and a small southern coastal town respectively, neither of which the steam line yet reached, so both arranged flying Pokémon taxis for the journey.
Freya was the first to arrive home.
Her hometown was a quiet little village in southern Unova, where the residents made their living growing berries and raising Grass-type Pokémon. Life there moved slowly and simply, the way it always had.
When Freya walked into the village wearing her League uniform and the Elite Four badge pinned at her chest, the entire village seemed to stop breathing for a moment, and then erupted at once.
"That's Freya! It really is her!"
"She's become one of the Elite Four, personally appointed by His Majesty Lucien!"
"Our village has an Elite Four member!"
"Should we rename the village?"
Neighbors and elders pressed forward, their faces full of awe and pride and open disbelief.
Even the young men and women who had once talked themselves out of becoming Trainers, out of fear of wild Pokémon, out of comfort, out of doubt, now wore expressions of undisguised envy. If they had set out when they had the chance, could that have been them?
In a house at the edge of the village, a woman in an apron heard the commotion outside. She untied her apron strings, stepped out the door to see what the fuss was about, and froze.
There, in the middle of the crowd, was her daughter.
"Mother!" Freya's voice cracked open with joy, both arms rising.
The woman's eyes filled with tears. She pushed through the crowd without a word and pulled her daughter close.
The woman's hands moved over her daughter's face, her shoulders, her arms, as though reassuring herself that this was real.
"You're back. You're really back."
"Mother, I met His Majesty Lucien!" Freya's eyes lit up as she looked around at the gathered crowd. "I competed with my Pokémon and won, and now I'm one of the Elite Four of the Unova Kingdom, a title bestowed by His Majesty himself. We all serve him now!"
The townspeople broke into exclamations of wonder.
"What kind of person is His Majesty Lucien?"
"Freya, did you thank His Majesty properly?"
"Yes!" Freya nodded emphatically. "His Majesty Lucien is an extraordinary king, the most powerful I've ever seen!"
At around the same time, a flying Pokémon taxi descended slowly over Castelia City. A year had passed, and Derick had finally come home. Clutching his pack, he didn't linger on the streets, he walked straight toward the house.
It sat on the outskirts of Castelia, a worn-down mansion that had been left to age without care for years. When it rained, water came through the roof.
In the small vegetable garden out front, a hunched figure moved steadily between the rows, an older woman with a bent back, working without pause. Derick's eyes reddened the moment he saw her.
His mother. His father had died when he was still a boy, and she had raised him alone, earning their living by the needle and thread, weaving day after day.
"Mum!"
His voice came out rough. The woman in the garden looked up, and her face broke open with joy.
"Derick, oh, you've finally come back!"
He crossed the yard in a few strides and took her hands in his. They were rough and cracked from years of work.
"Mum, I've become Elite Four. I work for the Pokémon League now, and I earn a proper salary every month."
She didn't seem particularly concerned with any of that. She looked him over slowly, carefully, the way only a mother does, and after a long pause, said simply:
"You're thin."
Tears ran down her face.
Derick pulled her gently into his arms, his voice quiet but certain. "We don't have to struggle anymore. I've settled in Lucien City, we'll live there together from now on. You don't have to work like this anymore."
He reached into his pack and placed his League salary and Lucien's New Year's gift carefully into her hands.
The smile that crossed his mother's face at that moment was the most beautiful thing Derick had ever seen. The boy who had once scraped by at the very bottom had built something, through his own hands, his own will, and lifted his family up with him.
In Opelucid City, Lucas arrived home to find his parents exactly as he had always known them, honest, steady, and simply glad their son was safe. When he appeared at the door wearing his Elite Four credentials, they stared for a long, silent moment before the tears came.
The neighbors gathered quickly, and those who remembered the mischievous, restless boy he had once been looked at the composed and powerful young man before them with open amazement.
"Son." His father placed a hand on his shoulder, voice thick. "You've done well."
Lucas stood tall, and felt it. something solid and warm settling in his chest.
In the older part of Opelucid City, Raphael returned to his family's somewhat crumbling noble estate. The Raphael family had once carried a proud name, but hard years had worn it down, and certain other noble houses had made no effort to hide their contempt.
That changed the moment word spread that Raphael had been appointed to the Elite Four by the King himself. Suddenly, families that had been cold and dismissive were sending representatives to arrange formal visits.
The old mansion, quiet for so long, filled with movement and noise.
Raphael received them all with measured composure, neither bitter nor boastful. He simply let the facts speak. From this point forward, no one would look down on his family's name again.
The once-struggling Raphael household entered the new year reborn. And Raphael knew, with perfect clarity, exactly where that renewal had come from, the unhurried, tea-drinking, apparently idle King in the castle, who somehow managed to arrange everything while appearing to do nothing at all.
After distributing the bulk of the League salaries to the Elite Four and the Champion, Lucien settled comfortably into the pace he had been quietly anticipating for months.
On New Year's Day, he made the journey to Eindoak to share a meal with the old King and Victini.
Victini, who had not seen him in some time, attached herself to him the moment he walked in and refused to let go. The old King sat across from him and watched the young man who had grown so noticeably since he had first arrived, and felt the quiet weight of everything that had changed.
He had watched it all unfold: a kingdom renewed, its people steadier and more prosperous, its future no longer something to fear. And he himself no longer needed to spend his remaining years anxious over succession and strife. He could simply rest.
He supposed that was probably the best possible outcome.
He sighed softly, and said nothing.
Lucien stayed only briefly before returning to Lucien City. Time moved the way it always does, quietly, without announcement. Winter turned to spring, and before long it was April of year 152 of the Kingdom Calendar.
With the Champion and Elite Four actively managing the Kingdom's Pokémon affairs, the wild Pokémon conflicts across Unova were resolved in short order. Under their guidance, the relationship between people and Pokémon continued to deepen and grow.
One calm afternoon in April, Lucien was reclined on the castle rooftop with his Pokémon, half-dozing in the warm spring sunlight, when Elif came in from outside, and for once, his composure was entirely gone.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty, the fleet you dispatched last year to explore beyond the Kingdom has returned!"
Lucien was on his feet before he had fully woken up. "Where are they?"
"Docked near Undella Town harbor! Captain Columbus has already made his way to Lucien City, he's waiting outside the throne hall to report!"
"I'll be right there."
The two of them moved quickly through the castle and into the throne hall, where a tall, broad-shouldered man with deeply bronzed skin stood waiting. Columbus, captain of the expedition fleet. The moment he saw Lucien, he dropped to one knee.
"Your Majesty, I am glad to report I have not failed the mission entrusted to me."
"Tell me everything." Lucien leaned forward slightly, patience already thin with excitement.
Columbus rose and began. "After departing the shores of Unova, we sailed open ocean for the better part of a year. In that time, we made landfall on three large landmasses and established contact with each."
"The first is an archipelago in the open sea. Its people are at an early stage of development, no unified nation, no central governance. The inhabitants still live in tribal communities. They call their land Alola."
Alola. Lucien's eyes sharpened at once.
"We traded with the islanders using the honey, cheese, coffee, and carpets we had brought aboard, and received a great deal of local produce in exchange. Our men also collected a number of native Pokémon, as instructed."
"Where are they now?" Lucien said immediately. "Bring them in."
Columbus grinned and turned, waving toward the hall entrance. Several sailors entered carrying large sacks of Poké Balls between them.
"Come on then, let His Majesty have a look!"
One by one, the Poké Balls opened. Flash after flash of white light filled the throne hall, and the Pokémon materialized across the floor in a sprawling, curious crowd:
Rowlet, Litten, Popplio, Grubbin, Yungoos, Alolan Meowth, Alolan Diglett, Alolan Dugtrio, Rockruff, Morelull, Stufful, Passimian, Mimikyu, Alolan Vulpix, Alolan Exeggutor, and Luvdisc.